He found the back of his head. It was half-hidden behind a laptop screen, but it was obvious he was doing something entirely unrelated to what the professor was lecturing so hard about.
Han Jaeheon hadn’t shown his face once in three weeks. In that time Eunseo had been rejected quite a lot, and he’d realized it wore a person down to the foundation more than he’d expected. It was a realization that made him look back on his own past of constantly turning Han Jaeheon away.
And one more thing he’d learned: how flimsy his relationship with Han Jaeheon was. If Han Jaeheon refused, theirs was a relationship where they couldn’t even meet face to face. Eunseo couldn’t bring himself to act as shamelessly as Han Jaeheon, and there was no pattern to where Han Jaeheon turned up, so he couldn’t go looking for him either.
But this lecture was the only place there was even a chance of running into him.
Rubbing his inexplicably aching chest, Eunseo returned to the lab. He filed away the checked attendance sheet and sat in front of the lab equipment for a moment, catching his breath.
“…Is he sick of me?”
He’d spoken his inner thoughts aloud without realizing it, and clamped his mouth shut. Lucky the other grad students were away at a seminar. Letting out a deep sigh, Eunseo unclenched the fist he’d been balling on his thigh.
Judging people as he pleased wasn’t good behavior, but Eunseo figured Han Jaeheon was simply fickle. He’d unintentionally overheard that quite a few omegas had come and gone in Han Jaeheon’s dating history… Of course, Eunseo wasn’t one of his romantic interests, but in any case, Eunseo didn’t think he was the kind of person who could stay steadily interested in anything for long.
And yet, he had one hobby he’d kept up for a very long time. Thinking back on Han Jaeheon’s piano playing even now left Eunseo with the impression it was like something from a dream, and he could swear it wasn’t the skill of a day or two.
Which category did he fall into? Eunseo asked himself. Closer to a love interest — or closer to the piano? He stared a hole through the spinning centrifuge, trying to find an answer, but had to give up. What he knew about Han Jaeheon was far too little, and too vague to apply to either.
…I miss him.
Startled by the sentence that had sprung up out of nowhere, Eunseo leapt to his feet. If he went now, he might get to see his face. Checking that the lecture was nearly over, Eunseo grabbed his bag as if he had some errand.
“Ah…”
He’d rushed over, but the lecture had already ended and most of the students had filed out of the room. The professor had — of all days — ended class early today. Chewing his lip in disappointment, Eunseo caught a tall figure at the edge of his vision and trailed a little behind him. Luckily, Han Jaeheon stood a head taller than everyone else, so he was easy to spot even from far away. Eunseo had no intention of talking to him or bothering him. He just wanted to look at him a little longer.
Han Jaeheon and his friends turned the corner and disappeared. That was where the lounge was… They’d placed sofas and tables by the window, and sometimes Eunseo and the other grad students
It was a place to catch his breath. He figured he could at least exchange a greeting in passing. Eunseo, walking with his footsteps carefully muffled, stopped short at a voice that suddenly reached him. It was because, of all things, the topic of their conversation was him.
“Han Jaeheon, you haven’t been going to see that TA lately?”
“Which TA are you talking about? Hey, the one with the glasses — the general-chemistry TA?”
“Isn’t that TA kind of cute, in a sneaky way? If he were an omega I’d have fucked him by now.”
“He’s not an omega?”
“I don’t smell a whiff of pheromones on him.”
“No, seriously, he’s not.”
“Well, I hear his ass is surprisingly perky.”
“That’s the best part. Thin waist, and an ass that sticks right out.”
Loud laughter burst out and went on for a long while. He felt his face go pale and cold sweat bead on his skin. Being the target of crude sexual jokes — no, sexual harassment — was something he could never get used to, no matter how many times it happened.
With trembling hands he pressed his cheek and eyes to the wall, and Eunseo lowered his head. He couldn’t decide whether to keep listening or flee the spot, and cramps seized his knees so he couldn’t move. His mind went blank; he couldn’t think of anything.
“Hey, Han Jaeheon — if you hit him up, he’d totally throw himself at you, don’t you think?”
“Bullshit.”
“You think there are only one or two betas clinging to Han Jaeheon? And no matter how you look at him, he looks like he’d take it rather than give it. I can’t even picture him with a woman.”
“Kids like that turn out to be more into it than you’d think.”
“……..”
Suddenly, silence fell. The few who’d been chattering excitedly shut their mouths completely at Han Jaeheon’s lack of reaction. Only then did Eunseo realize he hadn’t heard a single word from Han Jaeheon until now. And right after that came Han Jaeheon’s voice — laced with laughter, but colder than ever, the voice Eunseo feared most.
“Hm?”
“You — shut your mouth.”
“Keep going. I’m enjoying this.”
And then — wham — the sound of a table being kicked rang out loudly. Startled, Eunseo stumbled several steps back, and the books and bundle of papers in his arms fell to the floor. Hurriedly crouching to gather the scattered papers, he straightened up — and his eyes met Han Jaeheon’s. Han Jaeheon looked down at him with a completely expressionless face, only his lips curling up. There wasn’t a trace of laughter in his eyes.
“What are you eavesdropping like a rat for?”
“I wasn’t trying to listen…”
Han Jaeheon cut him off without even pretending to hear him out.
“You’ve been here this whole time.”
“…I was just passing by.”
As Eunseo made excuses, timid and unconvincing, Han Jaeheon spoke in a voice cold as falling icicles.
“The lab’s in the opposite direction, though?”
For Eunseo, who’d never been able to lie, this was already his limit. After looking down at Eunseo coldly, Han Jaeheon brushed past him with quick strides. Whether because the sight of him, furious to the very tips of his hair, was frightening, the guys inside who’d been chattering noisily seemed frozen, holding their breaths.
After standing there for a long while, Eunseo hurriedly bent down when some juniors coming out of the lounge glanced at him and whispered as they passed. Barely managing to scoop up the few sheets of paper still scattered on the floor, he began slowly walking. He didn’t even know what he was thinking as he made his way back to the lab.
So this is what Han Jaeheon meant when he said he wouldn’t regret it. Why had I… thought nothing would change? How could I have been so sure nothing would change?
Just as I’d guessed before I confessed. Han Jaeheon must have started hating me, feeling nauseated by me. Until now he’d treated that confession as if it never happened, so he’d been able to
act like it was nothing — but not anymore.
A beta who doesn’t know his place, a beta without even pheromones, confessing his feelings to an alpha. A male beta confessing to a male alpha — a gay beta… It was generous of him not to spit in my face, the way he’d be thinking.
Honestly, everything until now had been the strange part. This was the real Han Jaeheon. He’d probably satisfied his curiosity by now, and stupid me had even asked him, at just the right moment, not to pretend the confession never happened.
So from now on… probably… Han Jaeheon won’t even be interested in me.
The moment he grasped that obvious fact, Eunseo sank down and sat on the floor. The books and papers he’d been carrying spilled carelessly.
Ah, I see. That’s what Han Jaeheon meant when he said he wouldn’t regret it — right now.
Eunseo moved his lips, turning the same thought over again. But even so, I don’t want to pretend my confession never happened. Even if I fully understood how all of this works, I’m sure I would still have blurted it out with that same mouth, in that funeral hall beneath the dawn moonlight.
“Eunseo, what’s wrong with you?”
“…Ah, it’s nothing.”
At the appearance of another grad student — not Jin Seunghu — Eunseo sprang up and began tidying the floor. He shelved the books and crumpled the printed papers carelessly, shoving them into a drawer. As if I wanted to push my feelings in just like that — to the deepest place, as if never to open them again.
If only my heart could be like that. Shoved into some remote corner inside my chest, never to be thought of again.
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